Monkey business: Primate trio makes a rare appearance at Naples High School

In this file photo, a squirrel monkey sits in a banana tree in Naples.

Daily News

Naples' beloved band of secretive squirrel monkeys scampered back into the spotlight Wednesday with a visit to Naples High School.

Students changing classes at the start of the school day spotted two monkeys jumping onto a roof from an oak tree between buildings No. 5 and No. 6 near the baseball fields along Golden Gate Parkway. A third monkey lingered in the top branches of the tree, but it too had moved on by lunchtime, schools spokesman Joe Landon said.

The stopover at the high school, although brief, caused a stir with school officials calling the county's Domestic Animal Services for help — only to find out that the agency does not catch wild monkeys — and consulting with a veterinarian and with the Naples Zoo.

Freshman Jenny Christy, 14, said news of the monkeys spread fast around the campus and students crowded around the tree, looking up into its branches with cell phones at the ready to snap pictures of the furry guests.

"I thought it was a joke at first," Christy said.

Principal Nancy Graham told students about the monkeys during the school's morning announcements, warning them to stay clear and to not feed them. Yellow tape was strung along school sidewalks around the tree to keep passers-by away.

Naples Zoo Director David Tetzlaff said the monkeys are not escapees from the zoo on Goodlette-Frank Road, around the corner from the high school. They likely are members of the same clan that has roamed along the Gordon River since the 1950s, probably descendants of monkeys released after wearing out their welcome as someone's pets, he said.

Tetzlaff said that before Wednesday he had never had proof of the monkeys crossing Golden Gate Parkway or Goodlette Road, an amazing journey even for nomadic tree-jumpers, but Graham said students talked Wednesday about seeing monkeys in the neighborhood north of the high school before.

Their most well-known hangout, until Wednesday, was the Collier Athletic Club off Goodlette Road, where the unofficial mascots have attained a sort of celebrity status.

In 1998, a judge issued an injunction to keep a monkey trapper off the club's property after the Collier County Health Department deemed the monkeys to be a health risk.

That same year, the Animal Rights Foundation of Florida petitioned City Hall to make it a crime to feed the monkeys, but the proposal never came to a vote. In 2002, the City Council tentatively passed a monkey protection law but later nixed it.

When athletic club members noticed the numbers of monkeys dwindling in 2001, concerns arose that the monkeys might again be the target of trappers. At one point, only four monkeys were left, club manager Bill Kruse said.

The 12-18 inch monkeys, native to South America, have yellow fur with golden feet and hands with black on the top of their heads and around their mouth.

"They'll come down and eat right out of your hand," Kruse said. "They're very friendly."

Tetzlaff said feeding the monkeys is a big no-no because they could become too reliant on humans and could become aggressive food-takers. The monkeys could carry diseases, he said. The best policy is to leave them alone.